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Keyword: lookbackinamber

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  • Real-Life Monster: Scientists Discover Strange Wasp From 99 Million Years Ago

    04/05/2025 9:29:11 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 16 replies
    Scitech Daily ^ | April 05, 2025 | Staff
    Holotype of Sirenobethylus charybdis. Credit: Qiong Wu ***************************************************************************** A 99-million-year-old wasp species used a Venus flytrap-like abdomen to capture prey and may represent a new insect family, revealing unexpected diversity in ancient parasitoid behavior. An extinct lineage of parasitic wasps from the mid-Cretaceous period, preserved in amber, may have used a Venus flytrap-like abdomen to capture and immobilize their prey. According to research published in BMC Biology, fossils of the species Sirenobethylus charybdis, named after the sea monster from Greek mythology known for swallowing and regurgitating water, are approximately 99 million years old and may represent an entirely new family...
  • 5 Strange Prehistoric Creatures Found Trapped In Amber [20:03]

    12/29/2024 7:19:37 PM PST · by SunkenCiv · 7 replies
    YouTube ^ | December 22, 2024 | Ben G Thomas
    Amber is a remarkable substance that can give scientists a unique window into our planet's prehistory. From a dinosaur’s fluffy tail to a 20 million-year-old flea preserved with plague bacteria, let's take a look at 5 Prehistoric Creatures Found Trapped in Amber.5 Strange Prehistoric Creatures Found Trapped In Amber | 20:03Ben G Thomas | 689K subscribers | 769,762 views | December 22, 2024
  • Bronze Age Replica Amber Beads Analyzed

    10/22/2024 4:38:47 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 21 replies
    Archaeology Magazine ^ | October 18, 2024 | editors / unattributed
    According to an El País report, a team of researchers led by Carlos Odriozola of the University of Seville has studied replica amber beads produced by people living on the Iberian Peninsula between 3,000 and 5,000 years ago. More than 2,000 beads crafted to resemble amber have been found at 15 different Bronze Age sites in the region. Odriozola and his colleagues examined these imitation beads with infrared analysis techniques and computerized microtomography, and found that to begin the process, a stone or shell was chosen as a core material. Next, a mixture of pine resin, beeswax, and linseed oil...
  • Rock Used as Doorstop For Decades Turns Out to Be Worth Over $1 Million

    09/14/2024 7:52:22 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 35 replies
    Science Alert ^ | September 11, 2024 | Michelle Starr
    The 3.5-kilogram amber nugget is the biggest piece of rumanite ever found. (Buzău County Museum) =========================================================================== They say one's trash is another's treasure, but a chunk of 'rock' used to keep a door open for decades is a treasure by pretty much any metric you might care to use. The 3.5 kilogram (7.7 pound) stone was found in a stream bed in southeast Romania by an elderly woman, who brought it home and put it to use. Her discovery turned out to be one of the biggest intact chunks of amber in the world, according to a report by El...
  • The earliest Baltic amber in Western Europe

    09/04/2023 5:16:53 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 6 replies
    Nature ^ | August 31, 2023 | M. Murillo-Barroso, A. Martín Cólliga & M. Martinón-Torres
    AbstractThe occurrence of Baltic amber through Europe has traditionally been associated to the spread of the Bell Beaker culture during the 3rd millennium BC. In Iberia, this phenomenon is particularly noticeable in the southern half. Here we present an amber bead recovered in a Late Neolithic funerary cave (3634–3363 cal BC) from northeastern Iberia where more than 12 individuals had been buried. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy results of four samples revealed their complete resemblance with Baltic succinite reference spectra. Despite being a single bead, this finding provides the earliest evidence for the arrival of Baltic amber to the Mediterranean and...
  • Bronze Age long-distance connections: Baltic amber in Assur

    05/16/2023 6:08:39 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 14 replies
    Phys dot org ^ | May 16, 2023 | Oliver Dietrich, Landesmuseum fur Vorgeschichte
    From 1903 to 1914, the Royal Museums in Berlin and the German Orient Society conducted excavations in Aššur under the direction of Walter Andrae (1875–1956). One of the aims of the excavation was to study the great ziggurat (stepped temple tower). In April 1914, in search of the foundation layers, the excavators widened an existing old tunnel.In doing so, they uncovered several thousand beads of shell, stone, glass and pottery lying directly on the bedrock beneath the first layer of mudbricks. On the basis of find-sharing agreements, parts of the find ended up in the collection of the Vorderasiatisches Museum...
  • AN ENTIRE LIZARD TRAPPED IN AMBER IS GAZING BACK AT US FROM 110 MILLION YEARS AGO

    02/19/2022 7:35:15 PM PST · by DUMBGRUNT · 71 replies
    SYFY ^ | 18 Feb 2022 | Elizabeth Rayne
    Creatures get trapped in amber all the time, but most prehistoric finds are insects. Amber is a great material for preserving arthropods because of their already tough shells that will hold on even if the insides disintegrate. But what about a lizard? Retinosaurus hkamentiensis is a new extinct species of lizard that was unexpectedly found trapped in Burmese amber. No one expected an entire reptile to be preserved so well, from its scaly skin down to its skeleton.
  • 99-Million-Year-Old Fossil Flower Found Encased in Burmese Amber

    12/23/2020 5:43:13 PM PST · by BenLurkin · 25 replies
    sci-news ^ | 12/23/2020
    The new fossil flower, named Valviloculus pleristaminis, belongs to the order Laurales, its closest affinities being with the families Monimiaceae and Atherospermataceae. The specimen of Valviloculus pleristaminis has an egg-shaped, hollow floral cup (part of the flower from which the stamens emanate); an outer layer consisting of six petal-like components known as tepals; and two-chamber anthers, with pollen sacs that split open via laterally hinged valves. It became encased in amber on the supercontinent of Gondwana and rafted on a continental plate some 6,450 km (4,000 miles) across the ocean from Australia to Southeast Asia. Geologists have been debating just...
  • Scythelike jaws of Cretaceous 'hell ant' clutch a baby cockroach in an amber tomb

    08/06/2020 12:52:33 PM PDT · by BenLurkin · 42 replies
    Live Science ^ | 06 August 2020 | mindy Weisberger
    Around 99 million years ago, a juvenile cockroach met a hellish fate. It was snapped up by the jaws of a Cretaceous hell ant, a fierce predator with long, curving mandibles that swept up toward the top of the ant's head. Just moments later, the ant and roach were trapped in sticky sap that eventually turned to amber, providing scientists with a first glimpse of how the weird-faced ants trapped prey. The profile of a hell ant, with exaggerated upward-facing jaws that arc like the Grim Reaper's scythe, is unlike that of any ant alive today. Adding to the facial...
  • 99 million-year-old beetle found trapped in amber

    11/02/2018 7:42:10 AM PDT · by ETL · 38 replies
    FoxNews.com/Science ^ | Oct 31, 2018 | Chris Ciaccia | Fox News
    A 99-million-year-old beetle has been found, trapped in amber, stunning scientists. The new beetle, known as Propiestus archaicus, was found in Hukawng Valley in the northern part Myanmar, near China's southern border. P. archaicus is a distant relative of today's rove beetles, found in South America and the southern part of Arizona, revealing that the continents shifted rapidly millions of years ago to what we now see today. "This is a very rare find," Shuhei Yamamoto said, a Field Museum researcher and lead author of a paper in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, said in a statement. Thanks to the...
  • Sicilian amber in western Europe pre-dates arrival of Baltic amber by at least 2,000 years

    09/02/2018 2:13:17 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 19 replies
    EurekAlert! ^ | August 29, 2018 | University of Cambridge
    Amber and other unusual materials such as jade, obsidian and rock crystal have attracted interest as raw materials for the manufacture of decorative items since Late Prehistory and, indeed, amber retains a high value in present-day jewellery. 'Baltic' amber from Scandinavia is often cited as a key material circulating in prehistoric Europe, but in a new study published today in PLOS ONE researchers have found that amber from Sicily was travelling around the Western Mediterranean as early as the 4th Millennium BC - at least 2,000 years before the arrival of any Baltic amber in Iberia... "Interestingly, the first amber...
  • Treasure hunters say they have found .... the £200m Amber Room

    10/19/2017 4:25:07 PM PDT · by BenLurkin · 28 replies
    Daily Mail UK ^ | 10/16/2017 | Allan Hall
    A trio of aging sleuths - homeopath Leonhard Blume, 73, scientist Günter Eckardt, 67, and georadar specialist Peter Lohr, 71 - are convinced the missing Amber Room of the Russian Tsars lies in the Prince's Cave in the Hartenstein hills near Dresden. Third Reich scientists used the cave complex during the war - but all records of what went on there have mysteriously vanished from local archives. Lohr used radar imaging to detect underground booby traps and what appear to be bunkers under the soil.  He scanned the hill in September after claiming that a 'reliable source' told him of...
  • Baby Bird from Time of Dinosaurs Found Fossilized in Amber

    07/14/2017 12:18:02 PM PDT · by ETL · 44 replies
    NatGeo ^ | June 7, 2017 | Kristin Romey
    The 99-million-year-old hatchling from the Cretaceous Period is the best preserved of its kind The remains of a baby bird from the time of the dinosaurs have been discovered in a specimen of 99-million-year-old amber, according to scientists writing in the journal Gondwana Research. The hatchling belonged to a major group of birds known as enantiornithes, which went extinct along with dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period, about 65 million years ago. Funded in part by the National Geographic Society's Expeditions Council, this discovery is providing critical new information about these ancient, toothed birds and how they differed...
  • Dec 2016: Feathered dinosaur tail fragment trapped in amber amazes scientists

    04/15/2017 2:35:43 PM PDT · by ETL · 112 replies
    FoxNews.com ^ | December 09, 2016 | Rob Verger
    It’s a discovery that's straight out of “Jurassic Park.” Scientists have found a tiny section of a dinosaur’s tail trapped in amber, and not only that, it has feathers. Dating to about 99 million years ago, or the mid-Cretaceous period, the amber containing the eight dinosaur vertebrae originally came from Myanmar. While scientists have known since 1996 that some non-avian dinosaurs had feathers, and even suspected that fact 10 years before that, this new find can teach them more about how feathers have evolved over millions of years. The feathered tail in question came from a juvenile dinosaur, likely a...
  • Could Long-Lost Amber Room Be Stashed in a Nazi Bunker in Poland?

    06/20/2016 7:01:27 PM PDT · by Theoria · 35 replies
    The New York Times ^ | 10 June 2016 | Rick Lyman
    There is perhaps no lost-treasure mystery more seductive than that of the priceless Amber Room of Peter the Great, which disappeared in the chaotic closing hours of World War II. Now Bartlomiej Plebanczyk, an unassuming historian and museum director in northeastern Poland, believes he has found it. Elderly villagers told Mr. Plebanczyk that they had seen a German convoy unloading big crates into a secret chamber in a stark, moss-covered Nazi bunker near the Russian border in early 1945. So the Mamerki Museum, whichhe leads, recently completed a ground-penetrating radar scan of the derelict bunker that he said confirmed the...
  • Oldest animal sperm discovered in 100-million-year-old amber

    09/18/2020 5:08:46 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 29 replies
    CNN ^ | Updated 7:15 AM ET, Thu September 17, 2020 | By Amy Woodyatt, CNN
    Scientists have found the oldest sample of animal sperm, concealed in a 100 million-year-old piece of amber. Paleontologists discovered the sample in the reproductive tract of an ancient female crustacean encased in resin -- one of several samples of ostracods from Myanmar. The previously unknown species of crustacean, now named Myanmarcypris hui, resembles a modern day mussel and is an example of an ostracod. Ostracods are small animals that date back some 500 million years, and can still be found in oceans, freshwater lakes and rivers. Using 3D X-ray reconstructive technology, scientists analyzed several ostracod specimens, studying their limbs and...
  • Amber fossils unlock true color of 99-million-year-old insects

    07/06/2020 10:38:34 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 16 replies
    EurekAlert! ^ | June 30, 2020 | Chinese Academy of Sciences Headquarters
    To understand how and why color is preserved in some amber fossils but not in others, and whether the colors seen in fossils are the same as the ones insects paraded more than 99 million years ago, the researchers used a diamond knife blades to cut through the exoskeleton of two of the colorful amber wasps and a sample of normal dull cuticle. Using electron microscopy, they were able to show that colorful amber fossils have a well-preserved exoskeleton nanostructure that scatters light. The unaltered nanostructure of colored insects suggested that the colors preserved in amber may be the same...
  • 99-Million-Year-Old Ammonite Found in Burmese Amber

    05/20/2019 4:53:10 AM PDT · by vannrox · 47 replies
    Sci-News ^ | May 14, 2019 | by Natali Anderson
    An international team of paleontologists has found a piece of amber containing the beautifully preserved ammonite, several marine and land organisms that lived 99 million years ago (Cretaceous period).The 99-million-year-old piece of amber from northern Myanmar. Image credit: Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology.
  • First examples of Iberian prehistoric 'imitation amber' beads at gravesites

    05/07/2019 8:22:24 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 9 replies
    EurekAlert! ^ | May 1, 2019 | PLOS
    Prehistoric Iberians created "imitation amber" by repeatedly coating bead cores with tree resins... Many studies have confirmed the ornamental and symbolic importance of amber to European prehistoric peoples. This study is the first to discuss potential prehistoric Iberian "imitation amber" beads made using the application of repeated resinite coatings on top of a bead core. The authors obtained beads from two prehistoric sites in Spain: two from a cave tomb at the La Molina site in Sevilla, dating from the 3rd millennium BC, and four from a burial site in Cova del Gegant near Barcelona, dating from the 2nd millennium...
  • Frozen in time Ancient insects trapped in amber at the precise moment they hatched from their eggs

    12/26/2018 8:57:45 AM PST · by ETL · 21 replies
    The Sun ^ | Dec 20, 2018 | Harry Pettit, Senior Digital Technology and Science Reporter
    The rare fossils are helping scientists understand how ancient bugs hatched from their eggs The insects became trapped in the sticky resin 130million years ago, shortly after bursting through the shell – and scientists aren't sure how the creatures met their grisly fate. The amazing fossils are helping researchers understand how ancient bugs hatched and took their first steps in the ancient world. Like many modern animals, the insects used a tool known as an egg-burster to smash through the egg shell. "The structures that make hatching possible tend to disappear quickly once egg-laying animals hatch, so obtaining fossil evidence...